The Bookseller highlights cheerful remarks from Waterstone’s managing director James Daunt that their three-year turnaround plan is “on track” after the company’s results — already dated — through April 2013 were revealed. The silver lining is that sales only fell 3 percent, and their operating losses were also smaller. Daunt adds: “We put together a plan three years ago and we think we have delivered pretty much to the plan. These results are clearly a step forward but we have much more to do.” As you can see, sales at the chain are down 30 percent from their peak 5 years […]
International News
Bookselling: Chains Challenged In Netherlands and Poland, and More
Less than a year after Dutch investment group Procures bought bankrupt bookstore chain Selexyz for €3.5m and combined operations with the secondhand and discount De Slegte chain under the banner Polare, the entire company is facing new financial woes. The 20 Polare stores “temporarily” closed Tuesday and their online store has suspended operations as well as part of a “strategic organization,”according to NLTimes.nl, but ceo Jan van de Wouw told RTL Nieuws that Polare is negotiating with “two interested parties” to reopen the stores. Tuesday’s shutdown came just two months after Polare laid off 54 of 336 full-time workers, with book […]
Penguin Random House Announces Group Sales Heads In Both US and UK
Penguin Random House announced “new cross-company senior sales leadership positions” in the US, in order “to enhance and strengthen” the existing sales teams. President and coo Madeline McIntosh emphasized that each of the existing sales teams will “continue as separate and distinct entities” and wrote to employees that the “shared goal will be to grow our sales by developing and executing marketplace strategies in collaboration with our publishing teams that serve our books, the company in totality, and our diverse account base.” Earlier in the day, PRH UK also announced new sales and digital/consumer insight leadership positions (see below). Spokesperson […]
Following Big Loss, Quercus Starts Sale Process
After the disclosure last week of a large and unexpected holiday loss and “discussions” with its bank about the company’s revolving credit line, Quercus has announced it will “seek potential offerors by means of a formal sale process,” which the board decided “would be in the best interests of the company’s shareholders.” Livingstone Partners is running the sale, and the publisher has received permission under the UK’s takeover rules to allow bidders to keep their identity confidential. The company “continues to have constructive dialogue with its bankers, Barclays” and notes the “sale process is at an early stage and…there can be […]
People, Etc.
At Crown Archetype, Mary Choteborsky has been promoted to senior editor. At Touchstone, Lauren Spiegel has been promoted to senior editor. At Holt, Allison Adler has been promoted to associate editor and Leslie Brandon has moved up to publicity manager. Elsewhere at Macmillan, Kelsey Albertson has been promoted to sales coordinator, and Hannah Braaten is now assistant editor. At The Lisa Ekus Group, Sally Ekus has been promoted to agency manager. Penguin Random House chairman John Makinson speaks to The Times of India about the merged company. Asked, “What does that scale allow you to do?,” he answers: “It puts us […]
Corporate: Bloomsbury Finishes Well; Russian Publishers Merge
Bloomsbury issued a brief trading update on sales for the last four months of 2013. “In line with expectations,” sales rose 20 percent compared to a year ago, with “most of the growth generated from print sales.” Their sales had been up 13 percent for the first half of the year, helped by both trade hits and their continuing string of academic and professional publishing acquisitions. Separately, Russia’s two biggest trade publishers have completed the merger they began some time ago, with Eksmo finalizing their purchase of AST. The purchase price was not disclosed. Publishing Perspectives reports that Eksmo owner Oleg Novikov […]